The advantages and disadvantages of Natural Pigment

Natural food colorant (pigment) is a kind of edible pigment obtained by the natural resources. Mainly from animal and plant tissues and microorganisms to extract pigment, and the colorants is in the majority of plant. Natural Pigment has not only to the role of food coloring, but also is a considerable part of Natural Pigment has the physiological activity.
The advantages of Natural Pigments
1. Most Natural Pigments are from animal and plant tissue, therefore, generally on the high security to people.
2. Some Natural Pigment itself is a kind of nutrients, has nutrition effects, some also have a certain pharmacological effects.
3. It can be better able to mimic the natural color, the color tonal is more natural.
The limitations of Natural Pigment in application:
1. The solubility of it is small, it is not easy to color uniformity.
2. The pigment concentration is generally small, dyed the gender is poo, some natural edible pigment and food raw materials produce chemical reaction and discoloration.
3. The fastness of it is poor, and greatly affected by PH, oxidation, light, temperature and so on.
4. Because it has been extracted from natural plants, sometimes affected by its coexisting ingredients or have their own peculiar smell.
5. It is difficult for Natural Pigment to color. Different colorant compatibility is poor, it is difficult to deploy a arbitrary hue.
6. It is susceptible to metal ions and water quality impact. Edible Natural Pigment is easy to occur in metal ion catalyzed decomposition, discoloration or formation of insolubles salts.
7. The composition of it is complicated, improper use of it is easy to produce precipitation, opacity, and the pure product cost is high.
8. The products are quite different, Natural Pigments are basically is a mixture of several components, but the same colorant due to different sources, different processing methods, and the ingredients are also different.
9. The properties of Natural Pigment are less stable than the synthetic pigment, when we use it, we need to add protective agents, and this have some adverse effects on the use of pigment.
10. In most cases, the cost of Natural Pigment is much higher than the cost of synthetic pigment.